It’s called a “wrongful birth” bill and it’s all about preventing women from having an abortion, even if it kills them. The Arizona Senate passed a bill this week that gives doctors a free pass to not inform pregnant women of prenatal problems because such information could lead to an abortion.

In other words, doctors can intentionally keep critical health information from pregnant women and can’t be sued for it. According to the Arizona Capitol Times, “the bill’s sponsor is Republican Nancy Barto of Phoenix. She says allowing the medical malpractice lawsuits endorses the idea that if a child is born with a disability, someone is to blame.” So Republicans are banning lawsuits against doctors who keep information from pregnant women so as to prevent them from choosing to have an abortion.

This bill is actually more disturbing than the Republicans seem to realize. Giving doctors such a free pass risks the lives of both the expectant mother and the fetus she carries. Prenatal care isn’t just for discovering birth defects and disabilities. It is also for discovering life threatening issues such as an ectopic pregnancy which often requires an abortion to save the life of the mother. With rare exceptions, ectopic pregnancies are not viable anyway, but Republicans are allowing anti-abortion doctors to keep life threatening information from pregnant women all because they are obsessed with stopping any and all abortions. Women may not know they have a life threatening condition until they die on the emergency room table. And the doctor couldn’t be sued.

5. The Az Senate and governor needs brain transplants.

Just like the Santorum thinking, I knew years ago the anti-abortion group wanted to expand and control our every lives and now the truth is coming to the surface. This is an overreach, Brewer needs to put the finger in the face of senators and clear their mind. I also see where they want to change the gun free school zone, what are they thinking. Sharia law is ongoing in AZ

49. You're kidding, right?

Jan Brewer is probably champing at the bit to get this bill on her desk, where she will sign it with the greatest of pleasure.

Legal types, let me ask you this: If a woman died because of her pregnancy and her doctor knew she could die from it but withheld that information in an attempt to prevent an abortion, could the survivors sue Jan Brewer, every member of the Arizona Legislature who voted for the bill, the Arizona Republican Party and whatever church the doctor attends?

6. That is unethical for a doctor to not inform the patients of risks & benefits of a medical procedure

The Repukes are busy telling doctors what they can and cannot say. Wasn't there a Supreme Court case about freedom of speech of doctors, and legislators interfering with the doctor-patient relationship???

63. The AZ AMA should make clear to its members

that any one of them who withhold such information will be investigated for revocation of their medical license, regardless of any state "law." While the legislature can pass all of these such laws it wants, it DOES NOT and CANNOT any control whatsoever over the profession's own code of ethics and conduct and the AMA rules. Those are entirely separate from any legislative ordinances and control. And the deliberate withholding of medical information, particularly when it involves a potential or direct threat to lives such as an ectopic pregnancy, is a gross violation of the most basic code of professional conduct that doctors are sworn to uphold.

Therefore, any doctor who tries to hide behind the protection of any legislative rule such as this may be shielded from state criminal prosecution and civil suits by any affected patients, but he or she WILL NOT be shielded from professional discipline itself. The AMA needs to make this absolutely crystal clear to state physicians. And if a patient dies as a direct result of their deliberate withholding of information, then their license must be immediately revoced, with no possibility of reinstatement.

62. Just us women.

8. So, the GOP is now for adding more unbearable medical costs and heartbreak.

Suppose a woman is carrying a fetus with Trisomy 18, and unlike the Santorum's, would choose to abort and isn't given the information. Will the good GOP sponsor, Nancy Barto, be willing to pay out the several hundreds of thousand of dollars annually to provide the same around the clock care that Bella Santorum gets? If not, who will?

22. Who exactly is right. A burger flipper would have the money

to pay for and support a child with this condition for the rest of their life? I mean even AFTER the parents themselves are dead. Then they want to cut Medicade too? Bring back State run Asylums? Bring back Willowbrooks? That is what happened in the past when parents could no longer care, physically, emotionally, or financially, for these kids.

I worked with one Willowbrook "graduate" who was in her 50s. She could not talk, walk, feed, or toilet herself. Her parents put her in that institution as a little girl, and wanted nothing more to do with her. No, nobody ever adopted these SEVERELY physically and mentally disabled children. Her parents passed away years ago. Her only living relative was a younger sister. When the agency tried to contact her sister about her care, her sister wrote, "Do not contact me ever again about my sister's care." "I only wish to be contacted when my sister has passed away and I need to make arrangements for her burial."

I wonder what Saint Rick would have to say about that? What is his SOLUTION for the care of these disabled children who MUST BE BORN, cared, and supported, for the rest of their lives by parents who don't have the MONEY he does?

10. When my doctor diagnosed my ectopic

He got on the phone IMMEDIATELY and got me a bed in a hospital. You cannot wait on this because they cannot know when it will RUPTURE. If the doctor cannot tell you to go immediately to a hospital or you will DIE, they cannot be sued for malpractice and WRONGFUL DEATH?

What don't these morons understand that not ALL pregnancies are VIABLE????

15. WTF?

17. I can't imagine any self-respecting physician actually doing this

The docs I work with are anal-retentive about listing EVERY imaginable side effect/complication...that includes radiologists(who would be the ones reading the sonograms)Every woman should insist on a complete copy of their radiological report.It is your right to have a copy of your medical record.
Failure to report a possible complication is called "negligence".

64. The problem is, it doesn't matter if it's

negligence because the woman-hating idiots sponsoring it made sure to include provisions forbidding doctors who withhold any such information from being sued as a consequence of that withholding.

However, this is not at all in line with medical ethics and professional code of conduct and ethics supercedes any state law. Any doctor who does this should have his license revoked immediately and permanently by the profession's governing board.

41. Who's mad, sweetums?

44. Truth my ass

You're simply posting the text of the bill (which has already been read) and applying the wingnut spin I could just as easily get in freepersville. What wingnuts can't seem to comprehend is people have a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to an abortion for whatever reason they deem necessary. This bill simply subverts that CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. So spin it any way you want, but you haven't changed that reality.

46. Here's the results...

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Thu Mar 8, 2012, 11:30 PM, and the Jury voted 5-1 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: Please, 'liberal spin' tips your hand. If you disagree, you can do it without the pejorative comment 'liberal spin'.
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT and said: This is hugh. From Rush's lips to his ears. HIDE IT. And order a pizza.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No doubt the poster is a putz and soon will have pizza for dinner, BUT-- in this case he is attempting to interpret the law, albeit somewhat insultingly, and that's the sort of thing that shouldn't be hidden but be argued in the light of day.

Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: If at first you don't succeed, try left field.
Juror #6 voted to HIDE IT and said: Rightwing crap.

47. Thank you! Again.

Juror #4 needs an enema. Just my opinion of course.

"obviously a troll but the 'letter of the law' says troll stays and the spirit of the law is long ago exorcised and I don't have the mental ingenuity to think beyond the bounds of the letter of the law".

Side note: Hi, jury members. Juror #4 is a putz and would turn in escaped slaves because "IT'S THE LAW!!!!111!!!!!"

53. That might be true if this came from a genuine DUer

The best way to alert on a wingnut is by using the TOS option, but if someone is going to do a jury alert on a wingnut, I'm always going to vote to hide it. If I wanna see freeper crap, I'll go to freeperville.

42. Are you serious?

The bill simply protects a doctor from not disclosing birth defects and being sued because apparently people in Arizona are horrible enough that if their child has a birth defect, they want to abort it.

Simply protects? Whose going to pay for the child care of children with horrible birth defects if the family can't afford the care? You and the Republicans? That's a laugh. Ever been around a child that need 24/7 care? One that couldn't see, hear, talk, walk or do anything but lay in bed? And you think that life is more compassionate than an early abortion?